Self-induced crises

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A new self-help diagnosis

Monday, January 19th, 2009

What’s holding you back? 

Why aren’t you achieving all you wanted to achieve? 

Why are you stuck in a job you hate or around people you hate or with the teensiest bit of pasta sauce on one side of your mouth that you only ever realise is there after you’ve got home?

Why aren’t you consistent, except for the fact that you are consistently inconsistent?

santorinisunset

Self-help gurus will tell you that you have emotional blocks.  That something in your childhood, your genes, or your magazine rack, has told you in a profound way that change is bad, or that you’re not worthy of what your little heart desires.

They’ll tell you that you need to go back in time and reconcile your inner brat with the hapless adult you’ve become.  Perhaps you need some free time, some ‘me time’, or a candle.  Fill out a worksheet and figure out where your limiting beliefs come from so that you can reframe them in a newer, smarter, pissweaker context.

Granted, some people do have mental illnesses and/or have been through genuinely harrowing things that they’ve never fully recovered from.  In which case, of course, I wouldn’t recommend seeking help from Dr Phil or Deepak – but someone who’s qualified in more than wearing powder under hot lights.

But one factor – one vital thing – that the book-writers, the seminar-runners and the Oprah-appearerers never, ever seem to address is the thing is my main problem.  So in the name of self-help, I’m going to share it with you now:

Hello, my name is Keira and…  I. Am. BONE. LAZY.

I look for any excuse not to do things.  If I try something and then fail at it, I’ll say “Well, clearly I’m no good at this, but I’m really good at watching TV…”

When presented with the choice between watching TV shows and going for a walk, the DVDs will start singing their theme songs at me – and who can resist the stirring tones of The West Wing?

Lazy

This is not a fear of failure.  It’s a fear of having to work my arse off.

I won’t pitch my story ideas, for example, not because I’m afraid they’ll be rejected, but because I’m afraid they’ll say, “Yeah, can I have it by Friday?”

I don’t apply for new jobs because I’m afraid I’ll get them.  I’m really good at job interviews - compared to auditions, job interviews are a friendly chat.  And then if I wind up with a new job, I’ll have to learn new things and, worse still, do them.  Heaven forbid.

If I do manage to drag myself from the computer or TV to exercise for five minutes, I’ll do weights to avoid cardio. Or yoga to avoid weights.  Or Wii to avoid leaving the house.

I will go to extreme lengths to avoid anything I don’t want to do.  In high school, I did 4 unit science to avoid going into too much depth in physics and chemistry.   It was an extreme measure because my school didn’t even offer the subject.  My friends and I begged and begged our teachers to custom-make the class for us.  Talk about extremely nerdy to the power of x.

It was the perfect crime because, to anyone who doesn’t know any better, “4 unit science” sounded more impressive (It’s not. You replace all the really hard bits of phys and chem with Geology for Dummies).

Zzzzzzz...I play the world like a hand of Texas Hold ‘em – I bluff.  And I bluff - not because of some childhood trauma or because I haven’t inhaled enough lavender - because I just cannot be arsed.

What’s more, I’m pretty certain I’m not alone.  Watch any talk-show or self-help seminar.  You’ll see a few people with actual dire circumstances and abhorrent upbringings to overcome. But for every one of them, there are droves of people just looking for excuses. 

These are people who want a really profound reason why they can’t stop eating Cheetos, why they keep dating jerks, and why they spend all their money on scarves and ottomans.

Why?  I’ll tell you why.  Because you’re too damn lazy to make a change.  Take it from one who knows!

Then again, what would I know?  You think I research?

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Purpose – it’s that little flame…

Monday, September 1st, 2008

The musical Avenue Q expresses it perfectly – especially in the song I Wish I Could Go Back to College:

“I’d sit in the quad, and think, ‘Oh my God,
I’m totally gonna go far!’ (oh whoa oh oh oh oh…)”

I have no wish to go back to uni.  No, I’m thinking much further back than that – like, 10 years old.

I remember lying atop a brick fence looking up at the sky and thinking I had a secret formula that someday would make everything I touch turn to awesome.  And “then they’ll see!”

I didn’t know what this formula was (or who ‘they’ were supposed to be), but I believed in it.  It’s so much easier to believe that glory awaits you when you’re at the age where you can look at the future and see miles and miles ahead of you, yet feel no responsibility to have already done something worthwhile.

But when you’re older and you see people your own age (and younger) popping up as brilliant musicians, worldclass athletes, award-winning actors, best-selling novelists… well, it’s easy to start questioning what you’re doing with this one shot you get at life.  And if you’re like me, you start wondering if that secret formula you always took for granted is actually going to emerge out of the white noise after all…

…or if this is, as Jack Nicholson tells the people in the shrink’s waiting room, ”as good as it gets”.

Contentment, or even joy, isn’t that hard to find.  Eating great food with friends, smelling the first burst of spring flowers in the air, discovering a top TV show (for me it’s Weeds at the moment), remembering somebody’s funny turn of phrase… But, for some of us at least, purpose – that feeling that you’re going somewhere for a reason that you’ve set out (or, as Avenue Q would have it, “that little flame that lights a fire under your a$$…”) - is a lot tougher to come by.

So how do you find a sense of purpose?  Where does it come from?

The more spiritual types might say that purpose comes from a life spent serving others.  This sounds very noble and maybe even a formula for a utopian society.

It also sounds pretty much the opposite of what everyone else tells you.

For example, some self-help/life-coach gurus may say that you find purpose via goal-setting.  Decide what you want, figure out steps to get there and then single-mindedly go for it.  It’s about putting your best foot forward, making your dreams come true, building ’You Incorporated’.

Just by chance...Your dreams might involve other people, but they’re all a means to an end – they’re there to facilitate your happiness, your fulfilment, your career path – your purpose is ultimately for you.  Or so part of the self-help quadrant would lead you to believe.

They persist with this line, telling you that if you look after yourself first, only then will you be equipped to look after others.  But at what point do you know that you’ve looked after yourself sufficiently?  What’s the me-time quota?  Do you really get a choice in the matter?

Once, in a conversation at work on unplanned buns-in-ovens (you know, the ones that start with ”there must be something in the water…”), someone said, “Sometimes these things have to happen by accident or else we’d never do them!”

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon ‘em – is it the same for purpose?

Is purpose something that just hits you one day as the result of living?  The unplanned-bun-in-oven is one example – people are forced to grow up fast and not just live for themselves anymore.  Which is interesting when you recall the “purpose is serving others” school of thought…

Is a sense of purpose something that you’re born with?  I’m sure natural ability or tendency has something to do with how easily a sense of purpose comes to you.  If you’re a super fast swimmer and, despite being good at other things, you kick serious ar$e at swimming, then I reckon there’s a good chance you’ll find a sense of purpose in it.

Or is it a case of… work hard and a purpose will come to you?

I want a purpose - I really, really do.  And I like to think I’ve worked pretty hard in my time in a whole bunch of areas.  Yet, no one thing stands out to me – no shining light or neon arrow or even a spray-painted ‘X’ has marked the spot and said “you should do this“.

Well, except for one thing… at times like these, it is nice to go back to being that 10-year-old watching the clouds, believing that, someday, everything I touch will turn to awesome.

Posted in Kid's-eye view, Self-induced crises | 4 Responses »
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Saturn’s all up in yo’ $#!T

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

It’s not back yet, but I’m told it’s well on the way. Thankfully, I’m not talking about Christmas. I’m talking about every kid’s favourite planet to draw, Saturn.

Every 29.5 years, Saturn returns to the same point in space as it was when you were born. But what has a bigarse planet in the middle of nowhere have to do with us? Well, the astrologers say that the years either side of when “Saturn returns” are kind of a crisis zone.

Not necessarily in a bad way, however. Around this time, people often meet the love of their lives or find the jobs of their dreams, or they uproot and travel the world to see what else there is. In the years either side of 30, people supposedly cast off their ballast in favour of a more condensed version of their lives.

Sound vague? You betcha. These people explain it better than I do, though it’s still all very flowery, as you’d expect.

Of course, my publication’s astrologer tells me that I’m in a new lunar cycle and I’m also dealing with “a strong Uranian influence” at the moment. This is making me “crave emotional and intellectual stimulation”, giving me an “overwhelming urge to travel”, and making me “quite psychic”.

It’s true, I have been bored, my feet have been itchy (though that’s partly remedied with my impending trek to the Greek islands later this year – booyah!), and my gut feelings have been pretty damn sharp (sounds like appendicitis). I should play some poker before Uranus leaves my chart…

I’m on a bit of a learning spree, too. In the last six weeks I’ve started Greek language classes and Bikram yoga (that’s a story in itself). I’m still taking singing lessons too and with that the learning curve has suddenly become mighty steep (at the moment, the middle voice = brain explosion, but we’ll get there). The challenge really, really rocks.

Unusually enough, though, I’m not particularly stressed about any of this. Maybe the meditative effects of yoga are finally starting to kick in – my reason for getting into it in the first place. Inner peace. After all, you can’t be a belligerent psycho your whole life…

Itchy feet, casting off the ballast, seeking a new Everest… The collaboration of Uranus and impending Saturn, or just a pattern of being perpetually bored and indulgent and going from crisis to crisis just to amuse myself?

Whatever it is, there’s something in the air. I said it at the start of this year, and I’m still saying it – there’s something about 2008 that feels completely different. And if the last couple of months – especially the last couple of weeks – are anything to go by, it’s safe to say I’m right.

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The "I Hate Keira" Club

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

It’s the price you pay for being a smartarse – in those moments when you have a compulsive need to be right, to have the last word, or to make light of things at whatever expense.

It’s the price you pay for those times when you use too many syllables for it to be healthy, are too caught up in your own skewed view of the world (through a frame made of Lego or something similarly childish), and having immediate physical reactions that are difficult to disguise (the flush of rising blood-pressure, the powdery residue of teeth-grinding and the Munster-like appearance of shoulders rising up past your ears) when people say things you think are wrong.

When I was 12, some kids at school started an “I Hate Keira” club. The concept is funny now, but it wasn’t particularly funny at the time. People signed a list – practically a petition – to say that, unequivocally, they hated me. I suppose I should be flattered they went to the same effort as people do when someone wants to tear down a heritage-listed building.

I think back and – while in part it was caused by the nastiness of some people in my form – I know it was partly my own fault.

Certainly, at the time, people did think I was to blame. So I was sent to the school counsellor.

“In an argument with someone, never use your intelligence as a weapon,” her quivery, gum-chewing face told me.

15 years later, I still don’t understand that advice. And since I don’t understand, I’m probably not smart enough to use my intelligence as a weapon anyway.

The reason why I think some people didn’t (and, er, don’t) like me is because I have really strong (often negative) points of view. Perhaps it’s my ignorance, or an inferior wiring of my brain, but often it can seem almost as though I don’t really like anything until it wins me over. But then I’m the most enthusiastic person ever.

And that can be pretty bloody annoying as well.

Alternatively, I’ll give everything the benefit of the doubt. So much so that I can see all points of view with equal weight and simply cannot decide. Paralysed by indecision.

So there I am, a seesaw of opinion, swinging from wildly enthused to bad tempered, with a wobbly indecisiveness in between.

It’s not a lack of integrity – it’s just that I can’t make up my mind.

This is why you really can’t take most of what I say seriously – because, half the time, not even I can predict which part of the seesaw I’ll be on. Or whether I’ll still be on it tomorrow. I’m like a discount electronics store where “everything is negotiable”.

However, words are kind of a sport for me. So, most likely, I’m just being a smartarse.

One day I may shoot my mouth off and the next I’ll totally regret it. One minute I’ll take a really soft point of view on something, only to realise an hour later that I’m absolutely for or against it.

Often, when I write this blog, I take one idea and run with it. And later on I’ll read it and go “God, that sounds so much stronger than how I actually feel”.

In one of my bolder moments, I’ll send that blog entry to a newspaper. Say, then, that it gets printed. Then there’s backlash – genuine, venomous backlash – for it (which, no, I won’t be linking to) where people go to an effort to post a (web) response, of sorts, to what I’ve written. Again, points for effort!

Or, worse still, there’s the eerie silence from peopole who don’t see the irony, or even just the childish ambition, behind my ranting. The people who think I’m just a butthole.

Similarly in conversation, I’ll take a silly idea and run with it. And mid-sentence, when it’s too late to turn back, I’ll realise that the mirth is missed by all but me. I can feel the icicles form – that unmistakable feeling that, once again, I’ve made an enemy.

And all for being a smartarse.

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Because I’m SAD, I’m SAD, you know it…

Monday, April 28th, 2008
“The night is bitter, the stars have lost their glitter,
The winds get colder and suddenly you’re older…”

As its title suggests, this song blames The Man That Got Away for the above adverse conditions, I beg to differ. It takes more than any mere mortal to have such an all-encompassing effect on your existence.

I blame winter.

Anyone who even vaguely knows me will be aware that I’m not a fan of cold weather. If I’m cold, I find it hard to think about anything else. If it’s not my burning ears, it’s my icy (and/or soggy) feet or numb, deathly hands.

And don’t get me started on the toils and troubles of carrying layers of clothing around town and on and off public transport, or how my nose gets so frozen that hot water in the shower runs off cold upon contacting it.

The gray clouds, the too-short days, the stinging winds, the bare trees – awful, awful, awful.

Everything is that little bit harder – waking up, warming up, walking, breathing, living. And you have that little bit more time to think yourself into holes – time to overanalyse when you would normally be out and about with a sunny disposition powered by vitamin D. Now the world looks bleak, so your thoughts start to look bleak, and soon enough you’re spending every evening alone in your den, drinking cooking sherry and developing gout with a full-blast soundtrack of Mozart’s Requiem.

And God help you if you find romance during this time – the object of your affection will only see only your most pathetic side and, eventually, run away screaming. But you’ll try to explain:

“I know it’s only our second date. I’m not getting misty – it’s just the cold night air, I promise! Well, that and your lack of warmth…”

Now for some perspective. Some would argue that my winter whining is just a cop-out – an excuse to be a bad-tempered, melodramatic, pessimistic jerk for the better part of four months of the year. The thought has crossed my mind too, believe me – if anyone is going to see a flaw in my character, it’s me. And especially in winter when everything sucks.

But I’m told that there’s nothing indulgent about it. In fact, it’s a recognised condition – people who hate the cold and hate winter can unite in more than conversation about the weather.

They have what’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (or “SAD” – convenient little acronym, that one). According to the SAD Association (yes! they have an association!) a diagnosis of SAD can be made after three or more consecutive winters of symptoms, including:

  • Desire to oversleep and difficulty staying awake
  • Feeling of fatigue and inability to carry out normal routine
  • Craving for carbohydrates and sweet foods, usually resulting in weight gain
  • Hopelessness and despair, sometimes apathy and loss of feelings
  • Irritability and desire to avoid social contact
  • Most sufferers show signs of a weakened immune system during the winter, and are more vulnerable to infections and other illnesses

“But that just sounds like winter!” I hear you protest.

Exactly.

Posted in Grumpybum, Kid's-eye view, Self-induced crises | 3 Responses »

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